Does tough application make it almost IMPOSSIBLE to join Land Army?

An infuriatingly complicated application process has today been blamed for the failure of the Government’s Pick for Britain scheme that succeeded in recruiting only 200 UK volunteers out of 50,000 applications.    

Applicants claim to have faced a wall of bureaucracy which saw furloughed workers asked to film videos about their team working skills to secure a manual labour spot picking fruit and vegetables from the ground. 

One Yorkshire company director turn down two job offers because they were both at farms five-hour drives away – in Perthshire, Scotland and Dorset.

Some 49,800 applicants have decided against joining the Land Army and only about 6,000 have completed the video interviews for the scheme that was intended to replace the influx of immigrant workers who usually harvest summer Britain’s food crop. 

It raises questions over how farmers are going to reap their crops when that influx of foreign workers usually seen at this time of year has been cut off due to the virus.

Hundreds of Romanian fruit pickers have already been flown to the UK on special charter flights and the demand for foreign pickers looks set to grow after the failure of the Land Army recruitment drive.

Paul Harvey, 62, of Ackworth, West Yorkshire, who normally earns £70,000-a-year at a lighting company, said he was also made to film seven interview answers.

He told MailOnline about the ‘off-putting process’ after it emerged just 200 out of 50,000 UK applicants have taken up roles picking fruit and vegetables on farms.

Industry sources said this was because most workers want short-term or part-time roles while they are furloughed – while farmers need pickers for months.

Some 49,800 have decided against joining the Land Army and only about 6,000 have completed a video interview with the Alliance of Ethical Labour Providers.

It raises questions over how farmers are going to reap their crops when the influx of foreign workers usually seen at this time of year has been cut off due to the virus.

Hundreds of Romanian fruit pickers have already been flown to the UK on special charter flights and the demand for foreign pickers looks set to grow after the failure of the Land Army recruitment drive.

Mr Harvey, a father of two grown up children who lives with his wife, told MailOnline: ‘It is the most incredibly off-putting and cumbersome process.

‘Another government initiative that has not been thought through. I am not remotely surprised that out of 50,000 showing an initial interest only 6,000 went through with it.’

He said he began by clicking a link on a government website to join the new ‘Land Army’.

Mr Harvey added: ‘That was full of sensible questions like whether I’d done this work before, if I had a driving licence and if I would need accommodation.

‘I indicated in the drop down box that I was willing to travel an hour and work in Yorkshire.’

They then emailed Mr Harvey asking him to download an app to his phone which required him to input his details yet again.

Next, he was required to video himself answering seven ‘interview questions’.

‘It seemed totally over the top,’ he said, ‘and very difficult if you weren’t confident with technology.

‘The questions were the most stereotype interview questions such as, ‘what motivates you?’, ‘What experience do you have of team working? and something to do with targets and deadlines.

‘Each answer had to be uploaded as a separate video and having done all that it said I had successfully completed the process.

‘Two days later they emailed offering me ‘two roles’ they had found for me. One was to pick asparagus in Perth, Scotland and the other strawberry picking in Dorset.

‘Both are five hour drives from me and I had made clear that I wasn’t prepared to commute more than an hour.’

Mr Harvey also tried to get recruited through a different method using the Government’s Pick for Britain scheme.

‘That is also an exercise in time wasting,’ he said. ‘They give you a list of 16 different recruitment companies and tell you to apply to each.

‘You don’t know where they are recruiting or what type of work but you are encouraged to apply 16 times over. Couldn’t they share the information and let you do it once?

‘And they are talking about attending face-to-face interviews before you get taken on. These are manual jobs they are desperate to fill and yet bureaucracy rules it seems.

‘It can’t be that difficult to match up people to the part of the country they are in.

‘I am due to retire in June so I thought I could do this type of work all summer and if they could fix me up with a farm within an hour’s drive I would still do it.’

Reasons given by other UK workers for rejection included the farm being too far away, an unwillingness to commute and care responsibilities which made full-time work impossible.

But HOPS labour solutions director Sarah Boparan said it was also because furloughed workers want short-term jobs, while farmers need people for weeks.

She told MailOnline: ‘Often people are looking for short term or part time roles while they are furloughed as understandably most people want to be able to return to their usual employment as soon as possible.’

She added employees will be most needed at the end of May and start of June because this is when soft fruits are ready to be picked.

The Government launched its ‘Pick for Britain’ website last week to help farmers recruit new workers ahead of the summer season.

Up to 80,000 employees help farmers harvest their crops across the UK, with the vast majority from Eastern Europe.

But the coronavirus pandemic has stopped many of those workers getting to Britain due to travel restrictions.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said on Sunday the international food chain was continuing to ‘work well’.

But he said he expected there to be a need to recruit staff in the UK to harvest crops at the start of summer.

He added: ‘We estimate that probably only about a third of the migrant labour that would normally come to the UK is here, and was probably here before lockdown.

‘We are working with industry to identify an approach that will encourage those millions of furloughed workers in some cases to consider taking a second job, helping get the harvest in in June.’

NFU Vice President Tom Bradshaw told MailOnline: ‘As the peak summer harvest approaches, we have been working closely with Defra to ensure a solution is in place for businesses to recruit domestic workers this summer.

‘A dedicated website has been created by the government, and farm businesses and recruiters looking for staff are currently posting these vacancies on the site. We are expecting further news from the government this week on a drive to recruit people who want to help British farms.

‘There will be thousands of vacancies opening up on farms across the country in the coming weeks and we have already seen a fantastic response from the public wanting to pick for Britain this summer.

‘Farmers are incredibly proud to be producing food for the nation at this crucial time but there are challenges and the support of the British public is incredibly valued.’

And managing director of Southern England Farms in west Cornwall Greville Richards added to the Telegraph: ‘I am quite worried that we have had thousands of people apply but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, we will only get tens coming through.

‘If there are good people out there who want to come, then we’ll take them. It’s hard work and it’s long hours but it’s good money.

‘It gets my back up they say people are coming here on the cheap.’

New recruits are asked to undergo two weeks of self-isolation ahead of the start of a contract, followed by at least two weeks of training before they take on any work.

One farming boss earlier this month spent £40,000 flying in 150 Romanian workers to teach unskilled British fruit and vegetable pickers how to harvest.

Anthony Gardiner of G’s Growers said the situation was getting desperate because their regular land army of foreign workers are locked down in their own countries.

His firm, based at Barway near Ely, Cambridgeshire, chartered a Titan Airways AirBus 320 flight to get the team of ‘critically important’ pickers to the UK, which landed at Stansted Airport on April 16.

Mr Gardener said they were desperately needed to help the firm’s recently recruited UK workers ‘up to speed’ and ‘comply with food and hygiene standards.’

And he admitted it was the first time since the days of Margaret Thatcher in the eighties that British workers would outnumber foreigners on his farms.

The farming boss told MailOnline earlier this month: ‘That is the reason we decided to organise our own flight to bring in people from Romania. In the past three weeks, we have offered 500 jobs to UK residents.

‘It is going really well. Our season will be ramping up in the next few weeks and we are continuing our campaign to recruit more.

‘We anticipate that 60 per cent of people we are bringing in are going to be UK-based residents – but you can’t run a business on completely brand new people.

‘You have got to have some people who are experienced and know what they are doing.

‘They will help bring the newcomers up to pace and to comply with food hygiene and safety standards. The last time we had a majority of British people picking in the fields was at the very end of the 1980s.

‘Our hope is that this year we will have two-thirds of our workforce from Britain but you need an experienced core for the newcomers to learn from. It is not just picking. You need knowledge of food safety to do it properly.’

One worker, who asked not to be named, said: ‘We are treated well and paid good money. The unemployed British people should come and join us.

‘Working in the fields can be hard and tiring, but you have the sun on your back and it makes you fit.

‘It might seem a bit crazy that we are going to be showing the British how to work in their own country – but we are looking forward to it. It will be good for them to be in the fields instead of watching TV.’

Head of commercial aviation at Air Charter Services Matthew Purton said G’s Growers had organised six further flights for the rest of April for up to 450 workers.

The day I enlisted in the Asparagus Army: With migrant workers staying away, Britain’s farmers have turned to a rag-tag band of electricians and bankers to pick fruit and veg… so JANE FRYER donned her gardening gear and joined them in the fields

Bruce Kerr is a third-generation farmer in Suffolk, with 150 of his sandy acres dedicated to early asparagus. 

Each year, 90 experienced pickers will gather 500-600 tonnes of plump green spears from his land between the beginning of April and June 21, when the season ends.

They’ll pick from 6am to 6pm, with just 60 minutes’ break. Each day, they’ll walk almost four miles, bend down some 20,000 times and break at least one knife.

Pretty much all of them hail from Poland and Lithuania. Drawn by the pay, bonuses and subsidised accommodation in caravans on site, they come back year after year.

Until now. This year, thanks to coronavirus, just 18 of Bruce’s experienced pickers have arrived from Europe.

Some can’t travel. Some are scared to. One group of Lithuanians got to the airport to find their plane cancelled at the last minute.

And Bruce is by no means the only farmer with this particular headache. On Sunday, Environment Secretary George Eustice estimated that only a third of the usual contingent of migrant labourers made it into Britain before lockdown and urged workers on furlough to help get the harvest in.

So this season, Bruce will be relying on a rather more motley crew of pickers ranging in age from 17 to their early 60s.

None has previous experience. Some have never tasted asparagus or have any idea how it grows. (The spears shoot up from ten-year-old ‘crowns’, 18in underground.)

In their usual lives, they are plasterers, electricians, chefs, actors, designers, builders, financial workers, students and sixth-formers. But they need the money.

Bruce is just one of thousands of beleaguered British farmers now relying on the national push to recruit British pickers.

Last month, Stephanie Maurel, chief executive of Concordia, a non-profit recruiter supplying around 8,000 seasonal workers, put out a call to arms for British workers.

‘We are looking for anyone: workers who have recently lost their job, students who’ve been sent home … Please, please, come forward.’

And last week, Defra launched its big Pick For Britain campaign in an effort to mobilise a Land Army not seen since wartime.

Prince Charles lent his support in an interview with Country Life Magazine in which he paid tribute to Britain’s 80,000 farmers.

‘Food does not happen by magic. If the past few weeks have proved anything, it is that we cannot take it for granted,’ he said.

Here in sunny Suffolk, meanwhile, Bruce’s asparagus is growing like a weed. On a hot sunny day, each spear can shoot up (or ‘flush’) by 4in.

‘You can almost see it growing,’ Bruce says. ‘You can’t not pick it for a bit and come back later — the whole crop would be ruined.’

Given its retail value of £6 a kilo, his livelihood could be ruined, too.

‘It’s real seat-of-the-pants stuff,’ he says. ‘I haven’t slept for weeks.’

Little wonder, then, that some farmers are embracing different solutions. Andrew Gardiner, head of G’s Group’s Sandfield Farms division, took matters into his own hands, and 12 days ago, at a cost of £40,000, the first of six privately chartered flights from Romania touched down at Stansted.

On board were 150 of the company’s regular workers — here to work and to teach Gardiner’s British recruits just how it’s done.

But Bruce couldn’t afford to charter a plane. So in March, after several weeks of sleepless nights, he put out an appeal for pickers on Twitter — and was inundated.

‘The response was phenomenal!’ he says. ‘Hundreds of applicants of all ages and occupations. I am so grateful people want to help out.’

With no caravans this year to house his workers, he has a strict locals-only criteria: Ten miles, maximum, to minimise unnecessary travel. Anyone further away, he puts in touch with other farmers in need. The rest, he sifts with a toothcomb because this is no job for the fainthearted.

According to farm foreman Dan, even regular migrant workers are broken after the first couple of days of the season, before their back and glutes toughen up.

They press on because they’re reliant on the money. With the UK minimum wage of £8.72 per hour, plus bonuses for productivity and completing the season, they usually clear £100 a day, six days a week.

And also because they’re committed. They’ve left family and friends and travelled thousands of miles to live onsite in tiny shared caravans for months on end. 

Today, farmers have two main worries about the domestically-recruited ‘Land Army’: speed and retention. 

‘I get paid per kilo but they get paid per hour, so if they’re very slow then very quickly it won’t add up,’ says Bruce. ‘I’ll have to work out a whole new rota system, too, because they’ll never manage a 12-hour shift’.

During my visit, I ask three members of Bruce’s usual team how they think the home-grown pickers will get on. They all laugh, and roll their eyes. ‘It’s hard work,’ they tell me. ‘It is not an easy job.’

According to one farmer, who asks not to be named: ‘It’s a combination of stigma, hard work, lack of stamina and laziness. And surprise surprise, in the past, when local workers have applied, we’ve had a very low rate of return.’

But Tom Bradshaw, vice president of the National Farmers’ Union, thinks that might all be changing.

‘In an economy with less than four per cent unemployment, we’ve not had the people minded to get stuck into hard manual labour,’ he says. ‘But now, with lost jobs, we have hard-working people caught up in the wake of the pandemic. It is a very different pool of people to recruit from.’

Anxious that home-grown pickers will be too soft for the job, Bruce has organised a series of ‘training sessions’ for up to 30 people, including me, to give an hour-long taster of the job.

I met Michael, 51, who, until a few weeks ago, worked in securities for an investment bank in the City, but was laid off and found himself with just three months’ buffer.

‘I need to do something, but I’m quite a big chap so I’m worried I’ll not be up to the job.’

Asparagus-picking is physical but it isn’t brain surgery. The instruction itself takes about five minutes: slice down into the soil through the spear at an angle, be very careful of the smaller spears, and ‘cut and chuck’ anything too spindly, too wonky or nibbled by a rabbit.

Oh yes, and apply sun cream lavishly, drink plenty of water (there are Portaloos in the corner of the fields) and leave your pickings in bunches along your row to collect later while you stretch your back out. And that’s about it.

By happy chance, the rows of asparagus crowns are planted exactly two metres apart — perfect for social isolation but not too far apart for a good chinwag.

The students chatter cheerily on and on about shattered gap year plans, aborted A-levels, missed parties and whether interrailing will ever happen again.

‘This is the most people I’ve seen for a month,’ says Imo, 18, who is hoping to do film studies at Nottingham University in the autumn, lockdown allowing.

On my left is Ed Yelland, 31, a handsome actor who, if it wasn’t for Covid-19, would be limbering up for opening night in an off- Broadway play in New York.

Two down from him is Alexander Herbe-George, a 31-year-old set designer from nearby Snape, who found himself suddenly with no work and no money for the rent.

At the end of the training sessions, the sign-up rate is over 90 per cent and Bruce is beaming — hopeful that, next year, even if the world has gone back to normal, he’ll tempt some locals back.

‘It’s a real opportunity for everyone to work together. This isn’t a Suffolk or UK issue, it’s a global Western society issue,’ he says. 

‘I’m so pleased. I was nervous but they seemed to really enjoy it.’